Pierre Hermé Laboratoire -- where I work right now. This is not his boutique, so it looks quite shabby.
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02/01/2003 Entry: "26th Birthday"
Joyeux Anniversaire à moi! I always feel quite low around my birthday, and I especially felt lonely this year because I knew I would be spending it alone. To make things worse, I was starting to get frustrated at work. Although I understand written French pretty well, I still have a hard time when people speak at a normal pace, especially in an informal setting; thus, in the kitchen I often feel dumb and inept, and I’m afraid my colleagues might feel the same way about me. Sometimes I want to explain why I wasn’t able to arrange the parchment papers, or why I had to put the pistachio ganache in this bowl, and blah blah, but it’s too much of an effort. They don’t have time to wait for me to think about my explanation and I don’t have time to think about it either. And when I bring Chef Eddy 50g of water instead of 500g, all I can do is shrug my shoulders and paint a sorry expression on my face. What they don’t know is when they tell me to do something, like to prepare cinq cent gram d’eau, deux cent cinquante gram du sucre, trois cent gram du miel, etc. etc., I have to process all that in my head, translating the numbers and the ingredients – but in the kitchen, everything is vite vite vite (quick quick quick), and the Chef does not give a damn about embarrassing you in front of everyone else too. When you do something wrong, everyone else will know about it. Chef Eddy will shout it to the world, “Chapeau Mademoiselle!” (Well done! -- sarcastically)
I was thinking, should I tell them it’s my birthday tomorrow? Will it make a difference at all? Would I feel better being greeted by people I hardly know? Finally, I told Michel, the 19 year old blond hair blue-eyed patissier from Bretagne (Brittany), whom Eddy loves to tease because he doesn’t have a girlfriend. “Il faut le dire Karen” (You have to tell us these things). Before then, he was joking around, saying we should all go out to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate Chinese New Year, so when he found out it was my birthday, he said we should definitely go out to dinner and a few drinks. So he treated me to a Japanese restaurant around the corner, and we went to a bar in Porte d’Orleans called Auto Passage (not sure if this is the name, I forgot already) and met up with his friends Pierre, Vanessa, Charlotte, Alexander, 17-19 year olds, but I felt quite comfortable with them. One of their older friends, Christophe, came and joined us later, they called him ‘Papa,’ and at first I thought it was because he was older (32), but I later found out he was going to be a priest in 18 months!
So I ordered a mojito and we waited till 12am and they all sang “Happy Birthday to you!” (in English!) So to answer my question -- Yes! It made me feel better to be greeted by people I hardly know. :)
I have a whole day left for my birthday -- so far, my mom and my two best friends have called already. My mom said she'll call me several times today, so I won't feel alone. She's so sweet. :) Well, gotta get offline now, somebody might be calling! :)
